Au Pairs

Helping Young Children Learn Language

Being an au pair is an important role in a child’s life. When you are caring for young children up to 45 hours per week, there are lots of opportunities to help them learn language. Many host parents are eager for their children to be exposed to more than just English. If this is true of Read More

Hints for Success – Handling Expenses

Host parents often ask for suggestions on how best to handle common expenses that occur as au pairs are caring for the children. Miscellaneous Expenses There are different ways to handle the little day-to-day expenses that come up.  Things like when an au pair takes the kids out for ice cream or picks up a gallon Read More

Avoiding Homesickness in the Holiday Season

Homesickness can be a problem during the holidays, even if it hasn’t been at any other time of the year. Au pairs often miss their friends and family, familiar places, and their own traditions and customs. The holiday activities in the United States seem, and may actually be, different just at a time when an Read More

Winter Sports & Sports Insurance

Trying out winter sports like ice skating, skiing, and snowboarding can be very exciting, especially if this is your first time experiencing winter weather. However, you should also know the risks and be prepared. Is it risky to do winter sports without sports insurance? Yes. If you have to pay your own hospital bills for a broken Read More

Making Thanksgiving Memories Together

Thanksgiving is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November every year in the United States. It started as a harvest festival and has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789.  The most important part of Thanksgiving for American families is to spend family time together.   “My favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. Read More

Surviving & Thriving in the Holiday Season

The fall/winter holiday season is most often a time of joy and excitement. However, it can also be a time of stress and disappointment for both host families and au pairs. Here are some ideas and insights that will hopefully help you avoid stress and disappointment and share more of the joy and excitement! Holiday Read More

What are the Rules for Holidays?

There are no regulations requiring  host families to give au pairs any specific holidays off. In the spirit of the au pair program, many host families will give their au pair the day off on major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, July 4th). Most au pairs look forward to sharing holidays like Thanksgiving Read More

Hints for Success – Homesickness/Culture Shock

Almost everyone experiences culture shock and homesickness when they come to a completely new environment. Everything is different: the language, the food, and the people. Here are my Top 5 Tips for Dealing with Homesickness 1. Make friends – Don’t wait for other au pairs to reach out to you, reach out to them. There are Read More